To Grow or Not to Grow

as i’ve mentioned in my profile, i’m all about wisdom.  it’s one of the things i collect!  there is an abundance of it out there, in such a variety of forms:  books, blogs, quotes, videos, etc.  it can be a little overwhelming and difficult to pin down into a “useable format”.  so i love when i land upon a powerful concept that is condensed into just a few words.  that’s how i felt about the silence under the chaos.  since i grabbed that idea and made it my own, it has come back to me on numerous occasions and altered my thinking – in a good way.

i recently stumbled upon another such concept.  it was in christina baldwin’s “life’s companion”.  she is talking about difficult circumstances in life and how, when they are thrown at us, as they inevitably will be, we are faced with the choice to grow or not to grow. simple, right?  simple to understand, perhaps not as simple to put into practice.

i was able to put this idea to the test just this morning.  we live on a hill.  we have a steep driveway and it is shared by our neighbors.  they moved in as a couple seven years ago.  they now have four kids and have a building project underway, pretty much all of the time.  which means our “shared” driveway is subject to a constant parade of vehicles, including trucks of all sizes, accelerating up and coasting down. 

and then there is the noise of building – hammering, voices, machines of various sorts.  well, with no break from the last project – a pool which took one year to put in, it appears that they have started another.

i’ve tried to analyze why this makes me so crazy.  for one thing, one of the reasons we moved here was because it was quiet.  i think we feel a bit violated, disrespected and like the subjects of constant rude behavior.  but getting back to the point, just framing the situation in a “to grow or not to grow” framework somehow makes it feel very different.  to be honest, i’m not yet sure what form the growth will take, but now that i am open to it, i know it will happen. and that's a good thing.  interesting.